“We recorded the bulk of the record in January 2020 before everything went to hell,” says singer-multi-instrumentalist Chadwick Stokes in a recent Zoom call from Martha’s Vineyard, where he was vacationing prior to hitting the road for a summer tour that brings Dispatch and O.A.R. to Jacobs Pavilion at Nautica on Aug. 12. Singer-songwriter G. Love also shares the bill. “[After we decided to revisit the album,] George Floyd was killed and there was this pandemic and [former President] Trump was being an idiot and there was the continuing story of cops killing people of color. It was all coming to a head. Some of our songs had that reflected in it. We went in and thankfully had the time to fine-tune some stuff and rewrote some lyrics. It wound up being okay to have that additional time to work on the album. I realize it’s now a big ask for people to listen to it from start to finish.”
Break Our Fall represents the third album that the band has recorded with the same production team at Stinson Beach, an artist/musician retreat located just north of San Francisco.
“Some of the stuff I was writing on the original demos wasn’t necessarily what we thought we would record — but you can’t really control what comes out,” says Stokes when asked about the high-energy rocker “May We All,” a careening tune that’s one of the album’s many highlights. “Songs like ‘May We All’ had an ’80s feel with chugging guitars like a Cars’ song. That isn’t exactly Dispatch’s MO. We wanted to do songs that take us where we haven’t gone before. We wanted to go toward the songs that were interesting for us and more of a stretch for us. ‘May we all be forsaken’ was all I had for the chorus [for ‘May We All’], and I had about 50 things that you could say after that. I had so many options for that means and where the song is going. That was one of the songs where the lyrics changed after George Floyd was killed.”
Singer-songwriter White Buffalo, someone Stokes has known for years, shares vocal duties on the folk-y “All This Time,” another album highlight.
“We toured together when I was in State Radio, and I fell in love with the guy,” says Stokes when asked about White Buffalo. “We crossed the country together many times and any time we have guests for albums or concerts, we call on him because he’s a dear friend. With that song, it’s almost impossible to do it without him because he leaves such a void. I love the guy and love his voice, and he’s so much fun to be around.”
The band recently released an acoustic re-recording of one of its most beloved singles, “The General,” in Russian to show its support of Ukraine. Stokes worked on learning the language with an activist based in Poland, who eventually told him his Russian was passable.
“Sadly, that song hasn’t lost its relevance,” says Stokes when asked about the track. “We heard stories of the soldiers being told this or that story and that the Ukrainians would welcome them in as liberators. The reality had stories of Russian soldiers defecting. Someone on Instagram wrote that we should do the song in Ukrainian. It was a good idea, and we asked him to send us the translation. It went silent until someone said I should do it in Russian, and then we decided to make it happen.”
Ever the activist, Stokes says his charity Calling All Crows will devote its attention to the high incarceration rate in the U.S. To date, the charity has raised more than half a million dollars for a variety of causes.
“This summer, we are focusing on the incarceration program in our country and raising money for ending mass incarceration,” he says. “We are doing some events in different cities where people can come and learn about how to get their records restricted, so that coming out of prison they can actually get jobs. We’re helping with the re-entry of those who were incarcerated. All the money is going toward changing this narrative of incarceration gone wild. It’s crazy what’s happened since the ’70s. Reading and looking back and seeing how exponential the lock-up rate is, it’s so incredibly sad. We’re five percent of the world’s population, but we have 25 percent of the incarcerations. ‘Land of the free’ is such a fucking lie.”
Stokes says he’s particularly excited that the tour with O.A.R. will finally come to fruition after a false start in 2020.
“In the ’90s, we played maybe just once with them,” he says of O.A.R. “I think we were direct support for them. People have grouped us together over the years, and we stayed friends. We just haven’t crossed paths in years. This was planned for 2020, and it’s good to finally get out there with our friends. It’s going to be great.” 
This article appears in Jun 29 – Jul 12, 2022.
